Aruma makes quiet ASX debut

Gold explorer
Aruma Resources
has made a subdued debut on the Australian Stock Exchange, opening at a 1¢ discount to its 20¢ per share offer price.

Aruma, which was spun out of Perth-based
Hemisphere Resources
, opened at 19¢ share on the ASX on Friday and had slipped 2¢ in early trading to 18¢ on volume of only 75,000 shares.

Hemisphere announced its intention to float its Western Australian gold assets earlier this year, including its flagship Glandore exploration project near Kalgoorlie, to focus on its iron ore interest in the Pilbara and its nickel and uranium projects, also in WA.

Hemisphere, which has a market capitalisation of $38 million, has retained a 61 per cent in Aruma. The explorer raised $5 million through the issue of 25 million shares at 20¢ a share. It’s valued at about $11.8 million based on its current share price.

Aruma intends to invest about $2.9 million of the funds raised into a two year exploration at Glandore as well as its Kurnalpi South project, 100 kilometres east of Kalgoorlie, and Laverton East, near the town of Laverton.

The company is chaired by Hemisphere’s founding chairman
Paul Boyatzis
while former Kingsgate Consolidated exploration director Peter Schwann was appointed managing director back in February. Mr Boyatzis was issued one million options in Aruma while Mr Schwann has 125,000 shares and two million options. The options are exerciseable at 27¢ by 31 March 2012.